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By Andrew Crosthwaite
Mr. Walker was a teacher feared, secretly or otherwise, by most of the school. He was an old-school guy who, even in the 1990s, felt comfortable inflicting physical pain on any misbehaving students. His favorite tactic was to pull you out of your seat by your sideburns. He once rammed his index finger into my ear to point out that I was not listening. At the time I silently cursed him, but now I just hope my ears were clean. I owe this man an immense debt of gratitude, not for the finger in my ear but for another lesson he taught me.
At 16 I was a bad student. It seemed like everyone expected me to fail my exams. One day I was in Mr. Walker's class spouting half-assed excuses for another bad essay when he turned to the class and said, "One day Crosthwaite will realize that not everyone is against him; that there are those who believe in him. I only hope that he does not realize this too late."
I was struck dumb, unable to laugh off what had been said. It was one of those moments where you want to act cocky and arrogant, like you're too cool for this, but you can't. Those words made a big impact on me -- one that I couldn't shake.
It may sound a little corny, but over the next few months I began to put more effort into my work and studies. Suffice to say that I didn't fail my exams. Now, I can't say that I made the change for my teacher. It was strictly for myself that I started working hard again, but were it not for what he said that day, I know I would never have done a thing.
So many of our triumphs in teaching are short lived and our lessons forgotten. It would be easy to give up and stop caring about the students. To do this though, to work for the paycheck instead of those moments in the classroom when we know we have done something special, would be to give up on the greatest rewards of this job.
As teachers we are privileged to be in a position to give our students the tools to better themselves, to inspire and build confidence, or simply to brighten his or her day. The greatest privilege of teachers, though, is that we are in a position to change the course of our students' lives.
If we want to inspire our students then we must invest the time and energy it takes to get to know them. Such things require a great deal of effort. For some people it isn't worth it, but for Mr. Walker it was, and I for one will be forever grateful.
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